Finding and understanding the VIN
The 17 characters that identify your vehicle worldwide.
VIN, chassis number, FIN - the same thing?
VIN, chassis number and the German FIN all refer to the same thing: the 17 characters that identify your vehicle worldwide. German paperwork spells it out as Fahrzeug-Identifizierungsnummer. If you have found one of them, you have the right one.
Where the number is written down
In the vehicle documents: field E
The quickest route. In the German registration certificate (Zulassungsbescheinigung) the VIN sits in field E - both in part I, which you carry in the vehicle, and in part II, which stays at home.
Older documents are called Fahrzeugschein and Fahrzeugbrief. They remain valid and carry the very same number.
On the vehicle
If the documents are not at hand: the VIN is stamped or printed on the vehicle itself. Where exactly depends on the manufacturer - these four spots are the common ones.
- At the bottom of the windscreen on the driver's side, readable from outside through the glass
- In the driver's door frame, usually on a sticker on the B-pillar
- In the engine bay, on the type plate or stamped into the body
- In the boot, under the floor mat or in the spare wheel well
Reading the 17 characters correctly
A VIN never contains the letters I, O and Q. So a round character is always the digit zero, and a single upright stroke is always the digit one. The likely reason is the risk of confusion - the regulation itself does not give one.
Hyphens, asterisks or spaces you see on the vehicle are not part of the number. They are allowed on the type plate, but they never appear in the documents. Enter the 17 characters without separators.
The 17 characters are not one long serial number - they come in blocks. Only some of them follow a worldwide rule:
| Characters | In the example | What they hold | Standardised? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-3 | WBA | World manufacturer identifier. Says which region the vehicle comes from and which manufacturer built it. | Worldwide (ISO 3780) |
| 4-8 | RK012 | Model, body and engine. Every manufacturer defines its own key for this block - there is no universal table. | Manufacturer-specific |
| 9 | 8 | Check digit, calculated from all the other characters. If it does not add up, there is a typo somewhere. | USA always, EU since July 2022 |
| 10-17 | 4K123456 | Identifies the individual vehicle. In North America this holds the model year and the plant; in Europe it usually does not - character 10 is often simply a zero. | Partly |
Why do we need the VIN?
We use the VIN to ask the manufacturer about the battery condition of your specific vehicle. Without it there is nothing to match against - two vehicles of the same model can have very different battery figures.
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